Religious movie held over at Graham cinema

Saturday

Apr 12, 2014 at 12:01 AMApr 12, 2014 at 5:00 PM

Chelsey Stark

GRAHAM — “Held over,” is a term old-school moviegoers might remember from decades past. Movie advertisements used it to promote movies popular with audiences — so popular the films were “held over” for another week.

Or sometimes multiple weeks.

At the Graham Cinema, the movie “God’s Not Dead” was scheduled to end on Friday. It’s been held over.

“God’s Not Dead” is a story about a freshman college student whose faith is challenged on the first day of philosophy class by a professor who denounces the existence of God. The student, Josh Wheaton, must fight for what he believes or put it all behind him.

The cast includes Kevin Sorbo, who starred in the science fiction TV series “Andromeda”; Shane Harper, who played Spencer Walsh in the Disney Channel's teen sitcom “Good Luck Charlie”; and Dean Cain, best known from the TV series “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.”

The response by audiences in Graham has been unbelievable, said theater owner Jennifer Talley.

Church groups arrived by the busload, and the theater has sold out several showing times, Talley said.

Last week, Friday and Saturday night sold out at the 7 p.m. slot, Sunday sold out both matinees, and Tuesday night showed the same figures, according to Scott Matthews at the theater.

Graham Cinema’s Facebook page has had more than 23,000 hits since posting about the movie.

“People are literally clapping throughout the movie,” Talley said.

The Graham Cinema is a second-run theater, showing motion pictures for low prices after the films leave first-run theaters. Carousel Cinemas at Alamance Crossing, a first-run theater, was not able to run the movie on the first wave because of the staggered distribution platform, so the Graham Cinema was able to snatch it up first, selling tickets at $4 per seat. Carousel’s opening day for the movie was March 28, Wilson said.

“The film has performed well for us here,” Carousel General Manager Brian Wilson said. “We are excited to show it and hope it continues to play for a long time.”

“My kids have seen it three times already and are bringing friends to see it again this weekend,” Talley said. “It’s awesome to see that kind of reaction in small kids.”

Rotten Tomatoes, a website for users to post movie reviews, rated the movie at 2.5 out of 10. Ratings from IMDb, a similar website, reached 4.8 out of 10 from 6,905 users.

Users on Carousel’s website gave an average rating of 2.9 out of 5 based on 32 entries.